That Day I Died
by Arait
Summary: That night Hisawa, Yuuki died at 12:28. He was lost, forgotten in the midst of a battle between two kings, a battle of which no one had been a victor. This is his story...the boy whose death was not avenged.


_**VioletFireflies, this story is particularly for you, since you were having such a crisis about this person. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the story might actually make it worse, so "Gomenasai" and "Dou itashimashite" at the same time.**_

_**For the rest of you, this is "a sight you've never seen before," a story of the likes that (as far as I can tell) no one has posted here before, written as a gift to all the loyal readers of Waiting for Totsuka. To you also there is an apology that, sadly, the next chapter in WfT is taking much longer for Kateracks and Arait to write than expected. Don't expect to have to wait too long, though. Hopefully this will tide you over in the mean time.**_

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His name was Hisawa, Yuuki, written with the kanji for 'distant' and 'life.' He always had to tell people this, otherwise they would write his first name as something like 'gentle hope.' That seemed super feminine. There was no reason for him to give anyone extra reason to pick on him. Not that he was often bullied or something like that, but there would always be those few people.

He had his group of friends, and together they flew under the radar. Their scores on every test were average; their attendance was average; their comments were few and far between. If there was something in particular that they took an interest in, it was fandom. Because of that, they knew of all the fictional stereotypes they fit into and teased one another with them. Yuuki had white hair—often earning him the nickname Yuki, 'snow.' In the world of fiction white hair had rather inconsistent meanings. Maybe he had magical powers, maybe he would live forever, or maybe he was a bisexual super villain. At least, that's what stereotypes said.

In every movie he'd ever watched, the one with the white hair died first. In all of his mediocre life, the only thing he truly feared was his hair color, which seemed absolutely ridiculous, but really there was nothing else for him to fear. Sure, he lived alone, but he didn't fear that. His parents were only a two hour train ride away. They paid all his expenses, and he frequently went to see them over school breaks.

Secretly, he knew he was going to die before the rest of his friends.

December 5th began as a day just as any, except that Christmas was approaching. Everyone in Shizume City was getting into the mood of the season, which included their high school. They were planning some sort of party that neither Yuuki nor his friends cared much for. Unfortunately, his white hair once more served as a curse. To a boy whose main goal in school was to be unnoticed, being volunteered to play Santa at the party because of his hair color was the last thing he would want.

His friends made it both better and worse. Sometimes they seemed to feel his pain. Other times they laughed, deep inside just glad it wasn't them chosen. December 5th was the day of the party, to take place during the last hour of the school day. Afterwards, Yuuki's friends offered to take him some place to hang out, trying to make up for the bad experience of being Santa.

Yuuki turned them down this time. He was going to surprise his parents by going to visit them for Christmas. Once he came back in January, he would take them up on the offer. His friends all shrugged then, and they went their separate ways to their homes. As they walked off, one patted Yuuki on the back and warned him jokingly to be extra careful on the way home. After all, he was wearing a red shirt that day.

A red shirt and white hair—he really was destined to die. On the way home, Yuuki made his way through the busy streets of Shizume much more nervously than normal. He made sure particularly to steer clear of HOMRA, that bar where delinquents and fights seemed more common than elsewhere. Whenever he saw someone that seemed threatening, he changed his path home, making sure to always stay in highly traveled parts of town.

Maybe he was paranoid, going overboard with unnecessary precautions. It wasn't like he lived in a bad neighborhood or had ever been attacked on his way home. In fact, most of his neighbors were also students, of that school Ashinaka High. He was glad he didn't go to their school, since they were all snobs. Living next to them had never put his life in danger, though. It would be stupid to pretend the color of his shirt would change that.

Across the hallway from Yuuki lived a quiet, short haired boy from Ashinaka. As Yuuki had grown familiar with him after living in the apartment across from him for several months, they had developed a habit of greeting one another vaguely whenever they passed in the hall. For the past week he had been acting strangely, maybe a little rude, but Yuuki figured that was probably just typical end-of-semester stress.

This evening as Yuuki was arriving at his apartment, the boy from Ashinaka was on the way out. Raising his hand in an unenthusiastic wave, Yuuki said hi. The boy from Ashinaka didn't answer, actually bumping into Yuuki as he left. That surprised Yuuki, who grabbed the boy by the sleeve without thinking first.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" He questioned, all the while asking himself if he really cared about his neighbor that much.

The boy faced him, his expression one Yuuki had never seen on him before. The smirk, the laugh, the dead look in his eyes—it all seemed wrong, evil even. Yuuki frowned. Students from Ashinaka were snobby, not evil. This wasn't like his neighbor at all.

The boy from Ashinaka kept laughing in a voice that sounded like a thousand voices together. Then, something white came out of his eye, freezing Yuuki in shock. Yuuki felt like he was flung forward into a wall without even moving. It knocked the air from his lungs and invaded into his soul. It was something like a trail of smoke in the shape of a fox's head. He saw it for a moment when it entered the emptiest part of his mind and moved inward, strangling him out of his own existence.

Yuuki blinked several times, gasping for lost air. _What kind of hallucination was that?_ He wondered, the last thought that was uniquely his. The boy from Ashinaka collapsed to the floor, still in Yuuki's grasp. That laugh of a thousand voices resounded in his mind, coming out his own mouth mixed with his voice. He couldn't stop it.

The fox that had taken over his mind and body reached down, taking the keys from the hand of the boy from Ashinaka. Inside his apartment, the fox dressed the white haired boy in an Ashinaka uniform and then walked him back into the hallway. They dropped the keys back to the floor beside the boy from Ashinaka for when he woke up, and they went out to the street where it was now dark. As they walked, they crossed paths with a brunette in a blue coat walking beside a tall redhead.

"That is our next target," the voice echoed loudly in Yuuki's mind, and they turned around for a better look at the carefree boy. Yuuki realized then that the fox needed him for his ability to blend in and go unnoticed. That night they were going to stalk the brunette and his red haired friend to the top of a roof.

Two days later, he shot the brunette on that roof. He didn't even know who the young man was. Rather, he _hadn't _known until the young man introduced himself as Totsuka, Tatara five seconds before blood came pouring from his chest. It wasn't like Yuuki had wanted to kill the stranger. But he had.

He had choked back the fox—their king; all the thousand voices called it 'King.' For a moment, he had been in control again, holding on to the railing at the edge of the room when Totsuka first arrived. If he kept his hands on the rail, he wouldn't be able to hold a gun. While Totsuka spoke, however, the king's words filled his mind like his very thoughts. Thoughts inspired action. Even coming from such a foreign source, his body followed the thoughts that he himself had thought as if they were his own desires.

After pulling the trigger, Yuuki couldn't actually tell if he was pleased with himself. He laughed maniacally. Who laughs while killing someone? That's right. _He _had killed someone. No one else had forced him to do it. The thought had crossed his mind, and he had simply done it.

Once he completed his eerily taunting speech into the brunette's camera, he shot that also. This time he was certain he hadn't wanted to. He wanted the camera to watch them, to see what they were about to do. They would be caught then. The thought had been given to his mind by the king, however, so it had been accomplished.

They moved to a lower, nearby roof then and lit a candle. It wasn't any sort of typical candle, but rather it was a red light on a PDA screen raised toward the sky. They had actually gotten the idea from Totsuka two days earlier. It was a clever, easy way to gain access to the airship flying above their heads, their next target. So they had stolen his idea, along with his life.

The man on the airship was a tall, elegant man who didn't look near old enough for the rumors to be true. He couldn't possibly have lived in the sky for over 60 years already! One of the thousand voices hissed through the shared mind, "He's immortal, you fool!"

He spoke to them first in German. That made sense, what with the name of his blimp being Himmelreich. His voice was laid back and pleasant, even though his demeanor was hautein. He lived above them, was above everything human, but there was no way he was prepared for the surprise they brought him. They laughed, in all thousand and one of their voices when the man waved some of his lengthy hair behind his shoulder, repeating his question in perfect, formal Japanese.

"And who might you be?"

The answer, an overconfident, "I am the Seventh King, the Colorless King!"

"Oh?" The man was curious, crossing one leg over the other as if ready for a long, intriguing story. What could the power of the new colorless king be, and how did it relate to him, the First and Silver King? Was this a gesture of alliance? A mere formality of introducing himself to his fellow kings? There was never any guessing when it came to a colorless king. By the time it occurred to the man that this might be an attack, it was too late to stop it. The events were set in place. Fate could not be changed. He was forced to flee, flee into the body abandoned by the fox spirit, thus enabling himself to return and fight another occasion. Then, he would be prepared; he would prevail, once he regained his memory.

That night Hisawa, Yuuki died at 12:28. He was lost, forgotten in the midst of a battle between two kings, a battle of which no one had been a victor. This is his story...

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_**In case you thought all we could write was magic tricks and moron allergies :) Until next time.**_


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